


Unbecoming/Returning

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, OCD!Scott, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self Harm, more like 'graphic depictions of injury', the author stopped watching after nogitsune arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 09:44:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12056349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Sometimes, Scott goes back to the place he was turned.





	Unbecoming/Returning

A familiar fear binds them. Shared but unspoken.

Scott holds Isaac's hand and they sit on the bus in silence, each other's skin odd where their claws have left scars. Isaac's are fresher, still red in the center as if they could start to bleed, but Scott's are deeper. Paler. A constantly re-opened shade of brown. Thick crescent moons that are mirrored on the heel of his palm.

Isaac walked in on him once. He was sitting on the floor just before the bathroom, one foot on the carpet and one against the tile, with his claws dug deep into the muscle of his hand. Blood running down his forearms. Familiar fear in his eyes, desperate to avoid contact. Cotton t-shirt sucking up pints and pints of blood.

Isaac didn't say anything, but he didn't leave either. Scott gasped and choked himself back to humanity, face red with exertion and shame, and Isaac still didn't leave.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I came to ask to borrow your math homework but instead of studying for exams like a good kid, I find you half-wolfed out and doing serious damage to yourself." Isaac almost smiled (even though he didn't want to, and he was sort of terrified, and Scott still looked about to burst)."So, basically, what the fuck? And also are you okay."

Scott tried to find patterns in the carpet fibres, trace mazes through to the baseboards, but Isaac sank down to his knees in front of him and demanded attention.

"It's, you know," he stopped. Motioned to his chest and then up like something flowering, or exploding, catching on fire around his throat. "When I don't- sometimes- when I don't feel in control of it. This is how...this is how I stay human."

Isaac reached out, palm open, eyes asking for permission. His hand on Scott’s knee felt like knives at first, but then warmth and nothing more. The blood trails on his arms shrank inward, drying out at the edges and clotting together in the middle. The wounds sealed. The pain remained.

First there was nothing, then there was Allison. "Nothing else stuck."

"Stiles knows?"

Crowded between desks. Stiles staring and silent, brown eyes wide with nowhere else to go. Nowhere safe to look. "Stiles knows."

Isaac straightened, cross legged now, and rolled his sleeve up to the elbow. Four deep, short scars clustered around his elbow. The fifth was clipped down, curving along with the shape of his arm. They'd be gone by morning. Scott's always were.

\--

Sometimes, knee deep in familiar fear, Scott goes back to where he was turned. Roughly, approximately where he was bitten. Compiles lists. Lists of how he's a good person. How he's a person. Except, when it has him gripped tight (which it is more and more often), none of that matters.

Inside, very quietly, he uses the M word. The Monster word. and he uses it against himself. He never tells, because if he's a monster then what does that make Isaac? Isaac, who has anxiety attacks every time he breaks a plate and nearly turns, has to anchor his claws into the soft skin of his elbow to keep from losing control.

Isaac knows. (Isaac, who has been formally excused from dish-washing duty). Feels it under Scott's skin, swelling. He waits until four in the morning.

"Can we talk?" He's already pacing, seconds from being on tip toe, playing with the drawstrings of his hoodie. He's got a C in math and an exam in the morning, so Scott was expecting this. Sort of.

"I can make hot chocolate."

"No, no," he trails off, barely sitting down, about to get back up. "No, I'm just. Worried."

"About?"

"You. I'm really worried about you so we have to talk."

Scott doesn't ask for clarification, but Isaac knows he's thinking 'me?' because Scott is nothing if not predictable. "Okay, I'm listening."

"I wanted this," Isaac motions to his chest and then up like something exploding. Or flowering, sprouting new petals around his throat. "So Derek gave it to me. But you. Didn't."

"I don't want to have this conversation."

But Isaac is too far gone. "You were forced into this but-"

Scott gets up.

"Don't leave, don't leave," he has to stop and catch his breath. He doesn't ask before he grabs Scott around the wrist, but he knows he should have. "Don't go, okay? Hear me out."

Scott refuses to face him, but nods and stops pulling forward. Lets Isaac keep his hand around his wrist, because his thoughts have wandered to Peter and he doesn't want to get lost.

Peter, who couldn't choose a victim. Who moved on from Derek and went to Scott, then to Lydia, and wasn't satisfied. Never satisfied. Found Scott in the forest, disoriented in the dark with lungs protesting against the damp air and leaf mold, and thought he could use a little help. Forced into this.

"You know you aren't a monster, right?"

Scott bites back a laugh.

Panic builds in Isaac's chest. But mostly he's mad. "I mean it."

Scott says, "I know," for the sake of simplicity.

"I know you think you are, but I promise you you aren't."

"Okay, Isaac."

Isaac takes his hand back.

"I'm sorry for raising my voice."

"Can I sleep on your floor?"

What Isaac can't get out is that he knows that it's not like Scott thinks he's currently a monster, and it's not that he feels there's a monster inside of him, but there's the possibility of becoming a monster (of becoming Peter) looming just up ahead. Around every corner. In arm's reach each time he turns. The familiar fear of becoming who hurt you most.

Turning out to be a monster in the end.

But he can't make that work in words, so he holds Scott's hand on the bus and lets the scars that start under his fingernails remind him that he isn't alone.


End file.
